The Belly of the Beast: Chapter 2

[EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the second chapter in what I can only hope is a fiction piece written by [REDACTED]. It is bizarre, enlightening, and makes me want to cry on the inside a little. The first chapter may be found here.]

We arrived at the convention center around noon. Jeff drove; Colin rode shotgun. As we drove along the front edge of the coliseum, nearing the entrance, Colin turned around to face me. “We can’t stay here too long or we’ll draw too much attention,” he said. “We’ll just drop you off.” Right outside the entrance, Jeff slammed on the brakes. I jumped out and Jeff sped away before I could even close the car door. As I walked inside, I received a text message from Colin: “If your [sic] not careful, they’ll kill you.” Lovely.

Inside the building, fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling. The carpet was a green and yellow checkerboard pattern. As I walked past a bathroom on my way to the main hall, two men in cowboy hats walked out. One man was kneading his crotch; the other was gesticulating wildly. I passed through a set of double doors into the bright wide gyre of the convention floor.

———–

The first booth I saw was a bookstore. Interesting, I thought, they can read. Propped up front and center was Glenn Beck’s Arguing With Idiots and Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue. Fine, so maybe they can’t read. I kept walking. I wanted to find a gun vendor.

Guns, you see, are the most American of all weapons. Guns are the great equalizer; all bullets are the same coming out of the gun. A 400-pound man in a motorized wheelchair—the American way—has just the same killing power as a world class athlete. Besides, it doesn’t take a college education to learn how to get the gun to fire, just the principles your mother taught at home, like “aim for the critical mass.” When that man in the Rascal pulls on the trigger with his Cheeto-stained index finger, he embodies the American ideal. Truly, the man becomes America: his enormous man-boobs our vast prairies, his congested and frail arteries our debilitated interstate highway system, his sexual repulsiveness our collective frustration, his diabetic gout our national struggle with diabetic gout. Oh, so beautiful the image, I could cry buttery tears!—but back to the story.

I stopped in front of the first gun vendor I saw. Two people were chatting with the booth’s owner, a mustached man in his thirties. When they left, I walked up. He was cleaning a black handgun. “Hey,” I said. “Hey?” Is that how these people introduce themselves? Is there a code word? Did I just give myself away? Damn, I thought, Colin’s paranoia is contagious.

“Hi,” he answered. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m just looking,” I replied, not knowing what else to say.

“Well, look all you want,” he told me. “If you want to see anything, just ask.”

I stared at the gun he was holding. Something about it seemed familiar. “Do you know what this is?” he asked.

“Um…it’s a…it’s a gun?”

“This,” he said with a smile, “is—”

“TEC-9! It’s a TEC-9!” I shouted. Thank you, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, I thought. I was overwhelmed by a sudden wave of nostalgia, sweeping me back to those simpler times, when happiness was running over pedestrians, using the flying car cheat to land on top of buildings, flipping my Infernus sports car off a ramp and crawling out just before it exploded…but those rosy memories of drive-bys and katana attacks soon faded away. The vendor was staring at me. “Um…what?” I asked.

“Yup,” he said glumly, “It’s a TEC-9.”

“Weren’t those popular during the Brady Bill period because you could remove a plate or something and make them fully automatic? You know, bypassing the assault weapons ban?”

He cleared his throat and looked around, nervously scratching his neck. “I, uh…yeah. Yeah, that’s what you did.”

“Did you do that?” I asked.

He looked down and had just opened his mouth to answer when a voice to my side asked: “Hey, Steve, is this guy giving you trouble?” The vendor and I both looked up at the man who said it. He was six-foot-something and weighed about two hundred fifty pounds. He was built like a linebacker who had just retired and decided to grab a few more platefuls at the Chinese buffet. His red face stood out against his blue button-down shirt. The man was looking at the vendor.

“He was asking about the TEC-9,” the vendor said. “Modifying it.” The new man turned to look at me.

“What were you asking him for?” the man demanded, squinting down at me.

“Uh…” I struggled. “Just curious?” I coughed. “Just curious, I guess.”

“Me ‘n’ Nathaniel will take care of this,” the man said. He walked up to me and put a meaty arm on my shoulder, restraining my neck. “Move it,” he growled, and he started to lead me across the floor. Shit, shit, shit, I thought. We passed vendors hawking bumper stickers, popcorn, camouflage apparel. The man swung to the right and led me behind a booth and into a large tent. He released me and grabbed a folding chair. He snapped the chair open. “Sit,” he ordered, “and don’t move.”

Shit, I thought. I had wandered into the wrong situation, and now I was trapped in some gun nut’s back room while he went to get a friend. It was like Pulp Fiction, and I had no intention of having the same situation play out here. I thought of running, but he was doubtlessly carrying several guns. What if he was standing right outside, waiting for me to make a break for it?

Relax, I told myself, just don’t let them find out what you’re doing. I thought of the pen and paper that I had in my pocket. They’ll find out. Well, I’m fucked. Or maybe not…it’s not that incriminating, is it? Did I have anything else in my pockets? In my wallet, a college ID card—shit! They’ll think you’re a typical college liberal—and some cash—where are the conservative icons on your money? Why don’t you have Reagan dollars? If only I had had enough money to carry around hundred-dollar bills—the bills with Benjamin Franklin. Franklin stood up for Republican virtues like hard work, thrift, and sleeping with lots of women who aren’t your wife.

Was I about to die? I could see the rest of my life flash before my eyes. All my dreams for the future—gone! Graduating college—gone! Visiting Europe—gone! Dating a girl named Chloe—gone! Becoming the dictator of a small African nation—gone! Becoming so sucked up in a job and making money that I never had time to enjoy life, leaving so much money behind that my semi-legitimate children find out my name—gone! Because isn’t that the American dream—to labor and sweat and struggle until your family is rich enough to sue each other?

———–

Unfortunately, the tale goes on. Tune in soon for Chapter 3.

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